Arthur Rush @ USQ

Employment:

Trainer, Higher Colleges of Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE (September 2004 - Present)
Curriculum Developer, Higher Colleges of Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE (September 2003 - Present)
Assessment Developer, Higher Colleges of Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE (September 2003 - Present)
E-Learning Materials Developer, Higher Colleges of Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE (September 2000 - Present)
Web Developer, Higher Colleges of Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE
Instructor, Higher Colleges of Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE (September 2000 - Present)
Instructor, IALF, Jakarta, Indonesia (March 1996 – April 1998)
English Instructor, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA
(July 1994 - August 1995)
English Instructor, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (August 1994 - August 1995)
Instructor, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA July
(1992 - June 1994)
Coordinator, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
(July 1992 - June 1994)
Tutor, JEVS Refugee Center, Philadelphia, PA
(Oct 1991 - Feb 1992)

Module One : Activity 1.1

Multimedia Examples:

Positive Usage:

Site Name: Second Story
URL: http://www.secondstory.com/
Authors: Not Given
Sponsoring Organization: Not Given
Date Visited: 7/11/05
Description:

This company is a multimedia creator of interactive materials for museums and on-line usage. On line clients include National Geographic; multimedia installations include projects for the US National Archives.
Critique:

This is an excellent use of multimedia as it is purposeful, quick and controllable. The flash interface sits in an html frame set and is about 700 by 300 pixels. I don't know how they did it, but you can move the Flash interface around in the page to accommodate browser types and settings as well as personal preferences.

Negative Usage:

Site Name: Omorosa
URL: http://www.omarosa.com
Authors: Not Given
Sponsoring Organization: Omarosa Entertainment Unlimited, LLC
Date Visited: 7/11/05
Description:

This site serves as an on-line bio/portfolio and fan site for a mildly successful actress.
Critique:

This is an example of a senseless use of Flash. There is a silly, but fortunately skip-able Flash introduction that is thankfully mute. After the page loads, the links and hot spots are animated upon mouse over, but don't seem to be appropriate for the function. When a link is clicked, the user must wait for each area of the screen to close, finally the 'star' closes her eyes and the user is taken to the next page to wait for each section of the screen to reload. Yikes!

Brief Statement About My Experience with Multimedia

As a Consumer:

My experience as a consumer of multi-media usually involves a lot of waiting for downloads. I am often impressed, briefly, with flash sites, video etc., but the attraction usually fades very fast for a few reasons;

- Waiting for a menu or other flash component to download
- Novelty turns quickly into nuisance
- Seems a lot of it is unnecessary, making points 1 and 2 worse
- I could just be jealous that I can't do it myself

As a Developer:

I have had only limited experience with multi-media. I use it for specific learning purposes, such as audio files for listing to lectures or songs with target information contained to complete a task. I have used video files for course content enrichment and assignments.

I feel that critical to multi-media, images, any web components is that they are there for a specific purpose. They are motivated images, or a multimedia component that truly add value rather than illustrate to the viewer that the developer is capable of doing it therefore has done it.

I have neglected, actually avoided, learning Flash for several years. I have been using html and java script to develop sites and content modules for WebCT. I guess it is time I get started with the big stuff.

The Most Important Characteristics of Multimedia

1. Purposeful; Worth the wait; adds value to; site, experience
2. Controllable; Can switch off animation, sound, replay etc.
3. Fast to download

Module Two : Activities

CD ROM Packages: Windows/Mac/Cross Medium

Activity 2.1

I live in the UAE and this is certainly a Windows orientated country. I was hard pressed to find any CD ROM packages for Apple or cross OS. There is a specific Apple dealership where these can be bought, but not on shelves side by side of the shops I went to.

I checked our college library for this assignment as well. The communications technology department uses Apple for the graphics and authoring of projects. I certainly found a great deal of authoring software, but no CD ROM multimedia packages for education or home use. Perhaps they keep some within the departments itself, however, we are mostly a Windows system.

Some educational software I did find in shops or at the college.

Encarta Encyclopedia, Focus On Grammar, Grammar ROM, Capitalism II, Study Skills Success, Tense Buster, and Typing Tutor.

I suppose the surprising thing would be that any of the students come back after using such monotonous software!

Activity 2.2. Multimedia in different browsers

I thought I would try out my own multimedia in different browser first. I have an html module with Real Media video components. Some just pop-up a new window with the player in it, some I tried to be slick and embed.

I downloaded Fire Fox and tried the media on a total of three browsers; IE, Fire fox, Netscape. The video which is linked to real player without the embed code worked fine on all browsers. The embedded video worked fine in IE. However, both Fire fox and Netscape would not play the embedded video.

Both browsers offered to find the plug-in for me and did try, reporting that the ‘appropriate plug in could not be found’. I went to Real Media, downloaded and re-installed the player to no avail. Perhaps something in my embed code…

So, it would seem I am denying those browser users the video in that section of the module. This is unacceptable as the video is critical to the corresponding, required discussion posting.

I would leave the link to the site, but it is on our Intranet server at the moment.

I also checked the bob the Builder Site Tina posted, as I have a 4 year old nephew.

I checked the site on the same browsers as above. The most interesting finding is that on IE, the pages loaded, but not the sound files until I reloaded. Actually, I didn't know there was sound until I checked on the other browsers.

The animation all worked well in all browsers. The Quick Time videos functioned in each.

Activity 2.3. Multimedia Authoring Tool (See a Demo)

I chose to use an animated screen capture demo tool from Macromedia Captivate. I am putting together some training demos for WebCT here at the college. This is similar to Camtasia, but as the name implies, it ads the captions automatically.

This is by far the best tool I have used for this. You can add animated circles and arrows to draw attention, like Flash, adjust the time lines for when each element animates, including the text. Test questions and branching are also easily accomplished, as well as recording narration, although I have not chosen to do so.

Limitations: None really, except for the usual getting to know the program stuff. You can be up and running in a few hours creating professional demos and activities. However, there were some things to learn regarding sizing and publishing.

I chose to resize the movie to a standard flash player dimension. I did this after I have inserted my captions (additional ones I thought important) and animation. The resizing greatly distorted this and I spent some time adjusting.

The other limitation that come to mind involves inserting images. For some reason, some of my inserted images didn't;t look as clear as I would have liked. Perhaps this is do to the pre production values of the images and the compression to a .swf file that Captivate creates.